How is a community of practice different than solitary learning? You make sure to stay up-to-date with the latest research and training methods by constantly reading and trying to apply what you’ve learned with clients. Etienne Wenger, a noted pioneer in exploring the processes of social learning, will explain why the key learning processes and relationships are starkly different from formal curricula and standard learning methods. He’ll discuss why individual clinicians need the support of communities in order to problem-solve, gain perspective on their practice and their clients, and to truly keep up-to-date with new methods.

We hope you come away from this session with Etienne Wenger with a new perspective and understanding of how communities should play an important role in your therapeutic practice. One way to begin acting upon this new way of thinking is to really engage in the Comment Boards throughout this series. As you’ll see after hearing from Etienne Wenger, there’s a difference between learning and reflecting on what you’ve learned inwardly, and sharing your thoughts and experiences with peers.

Please take just a few minutes to comment on what you found most interesting about the presentation, your experience, and to ask any questions you may have.

What Etienne explained resonated deeply with my experience with the peer consultation group that I have participated in for close to 20 years. We are indeed a collaborative community that learn from one another and meet all the criteria that Etienne laid out in his presentation. Thanks for helping me view our group in a new way.

Great presentation on learning. The end really pulled it all together. Gives pause to think how very important our communities are to ongoing learning, and how important it is to give careful consideration to which communities we created and chose to join. So glad to be part of Psychotherapy Networker's community, which provides such exciting expertise.

Thank you, Etienne,for your presentation. How does a community avoid or monitor for any tendency to slip into mediocrity? I noted your mention of the "critical friend" and "error centric learning" as ways to keep the edge sharp. I assume any critical look at the community would take place in the reflect and self design component.I also appreciate Psychotherapy Networker. The webcasts are outstanding.

This was great! Its interesting to think of our field as having a knowledge base that is stored not in books, but in people. It is making me realize that my ability to access all the truth and knowledge that exists is not so much a function of how smart I am or how much I read, but also how well connected I become. This webinar has made me think even harder about how to manage my connections/networks and my time, thank you for that. It has also got me thinking that professional isolation causes more than just loneliness...it also limits our access to knowledge and growth in ways we can never achieve alone. Great series Rich, thanks again.

I agree: in my experience the peers community is a metacontext where emotions felt as therapists may be translated into verbal statements and possible errors induced in the therapeutic situation may become a key for the comprehension of possible pathological traits in client's significant relationships. Many thanks, Rich.

Merci, The presentation was helpful. It dovetailed with Scott's point to stop and think within and after session. Your point is doing this thinking and learning in a broader sense with a group. This has been a bit difficult as within the CMHC most were too busy and now in private practice the collegues are elsewhere.
I will work on the idea of a current community of learning.

Unfortunately I could not get into the webinar but listened to the download. I was saddened that I have not been able to find a group in my area that provides critical but non-judgmental feedback. I also have only worked with two people in my 22 years as a social worker who are even interested in learning and growth as therapists. I'm still enjoying the personal learning and love the examples of how to get critical feedback from clients.

Marylou, I think you touched a nerve with your comment about "critical but non-judgmental feedback." That is a quality I would very much like to locate. It seems to me to somehow tie in with the Carl Rogers nondirective model, which emphasizes acceptance and reflection without judging.

What a great presentation! I really appreciated the idea that connection is as important as reading etc. That helped my thinking shift in terms of how to prioritize the need for community. I also thought that the descriptions of different types of learning groups was very useful. Thanks for another thought provoking discussion!

Thank you so much for a most stimulating and interesting webinar! I loved the visual mapping as well as the discussion and found myself reviewing the various personal, professional and community groups I have participated with/in over the years.

Thank you for an enlightening presentation. The "learning partners" phrase interested me. Dr. Katharine Ford in Palo Alto specializes in working with couples, and I have taken workshops with her. She calls her way of working with couples the "Learning Partners Model" and it is one tht includes both members of the couple as well as the therapists as a learning community in the therapy process.